Table 1.

Summary of differences and similarities between three conservation perspectives in terms of important aspects of the socio-ecological framework.

	restoration target date	herbivore	consideration of other animal parameters (e.g. densities/grazing intensity)	climate considerations	fire	role of humans
Pleistocene rewilding	∼13 000 years ago	Pleistocene megafauna or surrogates	not specified	target existed under much cooler climate	not acknowledged	removing all humans
bison rewilding/restoration	∼10 000 years ago – 1492	America bison—others secondary	limited discussion	target was cooler but bison are tolerant of extremes	not acknowledged	post-European as a target but limited acknowledgement of the role of Native Americans
conservation of pattern and processes	contemporary	objective based	critical	contemporary	critical	contemporary with variable land-owners and objectives